Having tested a BD window on several of its Diamond- and Platinum-branded classic re-releases in a number of key territories, Disney released Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides on BD a full 30 days ahead of its DVD debut in the US - the first significant BD retail window for a new-release feature film. The title was the top video seller during its first week on the strength of BD sales alone, which was also a first. However, Pirates 4, with a US box office of $241m, wasn't facing too much competition for the top slot. The other new-release theatrical titles for the week of October 18 were Bad Teacher, with just $100m in box office behind it, Monte Carlo, with $23m, and the first full week of sales for Green Lantern, which released on Friday, October 14 and had box office of $117m in the US.
We expect Disney to count this as a win for the BD window and that it will continue to test the strategy on selected titles and in other markets in future. IHS Screen Digest has long maintained that implementing a BD window could add significant value to the BD proposition. That doesn't necessarily mean that the other major studios will jump on the BD-window bandwagon. However, Disney also was the first studio to test the BD/DVD combo pack which proved a solid hit with consumers, and now most major studio BD releases come with a DVD in the box.
After the recently-reported improvement in US BD sales through the month of September, this strong performance provides further evidence that consumer and retailer acceptance of BD has passed a critical turning point now that about one-third of US TV households are BD-enabled. All the studios in the US, both small and large, have been testing multiple options to increase consumer spending on video. Physical disc sales are the Holy Grail for studios because of the high margins they deliver, so we expect to see other trials of the BD-window approach.
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